Saturday, March 8, 2008

Green-winged Teals

Belted Kingfisher

Mike and Chris are having a contest to see who will get the best picture of the Kingfisher. They spotted the Kingfisher from different rooms at the same time but Chris was closer to the camera. This is the best photo, which isn't bad considering it was a grey day and he only stayed for 30 seconds, but Mike hopes to surpass her someday. Stay tuned, friends.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Green-winged Teal & Canada Goose

Another very exciting morning! We started looking early hoping to see the Wood Ducks again. One was here yesterday but barely for a minute. At first Chris didn't see anything other than geese, but did a quick scan over the lake with the binoculars in case. Well, good thing! Of course the "new duck" alert went into effect. There were two male Green-winged Teals hanging around for about a half hour. Isn't he just adorably small in comparison to the goose! It was sort of a gray morning, and we didn't find these little guys to be very photogenic, but this we thought was good enough to post.

Common Mergansers: Two Girls For Every Boy

Monday, March 3, 2008

Wood Ducks

This pair caused quite a stir at our house very early this morning. We were having our coffee in the upstairs bedroom windows as usual, which offer the best view of a large portion of the lake. At first glance with the naked eye, Chris thought the Hooded Merganser couple was back. Fortunately she was quick to grab the binoculars and discover it was a male and female Wood Duck pair. She dashed for the camera, of course all the while exclaiming to Mike how she could not contain her excitement. It's a good thing she moved fast, because they only stayed for about 20 minutes. We had seen a pair of these one day early last November also early one morning, and we hadn't seen any again until this morning. Chris sat out on the dock late this afternoon for an hour and a half hoping they would come by again so we'd have a clearer picture to put up, but they just didn't come by. The early mornings and late afternoons seem to be the best times for the less common types of ducks we see, so we'll surely be up early again tomorrow hoping for a repeat performance. The lovely female Common Merganser was here early in the morning too, and she was just demanding to be photographed again. I do love the way she is looking at him.

If you left the camera and binoculars right by the window, you would probably have less of this dashing about to get said objects. Of course, if you have more than one window this might cause some complications.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Tufted Titmouse

It's a nice bright sunny day today, so we got some clearer pictures. This is our first posting of the Tufted Titmouse. They move so fast it's hard to get them. The others have been up before, the Northern Cardinal and the Nuthatch.

Jersey Birding Links

Birds at the Bird feeders

About us

For those of you visiting this site who do not know us, we thought we would offer a brief explanation of how it all happened. We have lived in several different states, including Connecticut, New Hampshire, California, Virginia, and New Jersey. The house we rented sits right on a small lake, so we initially saw lots of geese and some mallards, rather mundane yet enjoyable. There seemed to also be an abundance of woodpeckers, and we started putting suet out for them. Mike frequently gets up early, and while working from his desk in the window this past fall, he noticed something other than geese on the lake. At first it started with a Pied-billed grebe, and then we also saw briefly a Wood Duck or two, a few Ring-necked ducks, Bufflhead, and then the gorgeous Hooded Mergansers. Well, we’ve fed birds before at other homes, but we’ve never lived on water, and we were especially fascinated by the beauty of the Hooded Mergansers. We have two grown daughters and family sprinkled around the US, and we were constantly e-mailing them pictures of the birds and ducks, so we decided it would just be easier to put them up on the web to share. We are not real die-hard birders, and we have no formal photography training. We’re just a couple who is enjoying the birds and waterfowl of their own backyard and wanted to share them. So, you may find more professional pictures somewhere else, but we hope you enjoy our site as well.

We moved back to California in June 2012, and we've started a new blog, California Birds. Here are our most recent California photos.